12 indicted as part of 14-month federal cocaine investigation
A 14-month federal wiretap investigation into two alleged interrelated cocaine trafficking rings has culminated in the indictments of a dozen people across the region, including a reputed ringleader from Plum.
The charges were handed up under seal March 20 and unsealed this week as agents made arrests and hauled the defendants into U.S. District Court.
U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement Wednesday that the battle against opioids “in no way” deters federal efforts to pursue cocaine traffickers.
Some law officers have said that coke dealing is on the increase here and across the nation in part because of the focus on heroin, fentanyl and narcotic painkillers.
Mr. Brady said the new case charges members of what officials believe are two separate but related trafficking groups.
Details were sparse, but the first indictment charges that Thomas Poole, 52, of Greendale Drive in Plum and eight associates conspired to distribute cocaine from January 2016 to November 2017.
The others charged are: Cameron Mele, 42, of Downtown; Jayson Markulin, 46, of McKees Rocks; Brian Horvath, 46, of Forest Hills; Albert Mastrippolito, Jr., 59, of Claridge, Westmoreland County; Craig George, 50, of Greensburg; Anthony Monteleone, 58, of Mount Lebanon; Scott Spangler, 38, of North Versailles; and Richard Kosmar, 56, of Ingram.
The alleged dealers face mandatory minimum sentences of five years in prison if convicted, and some could face 10 years to life.
A second indictment charges that Diop Fitzgerald, 40, formerly of West Mifflin, and two other men, Landriff Macklin, 39, formerly of Penn Hills, and James White, 45, of Duquesne, conspired to distribute coke from September 2016 to November 2017.
The investigation first came to light last year when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration charged Fitzgerald, a convicted felon, with coke trafficking following a tap of his phone. Texts from October 2017 revealed that a customer was interested in buying coke from Fitzgerald. On Oct. 26, agents on surveillance watched Fitzgerald’s black pickup outside a Pittsburgh barbershop, according to an affidavit. The buyer arrived in a sedan, placed a bag under Fitzgerald’s passenger seat, took a shopping bag back to his car and left.
Officers later pulled over the buyer’s car and found between 500 and 1,000 grams of cocaine. The bag left in Fitzgerald’s car was payment, according to officials.
Fitzgerald was arrested and charged in federal court on Nov. 30, detained and then indicted by grand jury in December.
Agents continued their investigation into others, leading to the new indictments. Many of the accused traffickers have criminal records, and at least two, Fitzgerald and Mele, have prior drug convictions in the federal system.
As part of the case, prosecutors moved to forfeit $123,000 seized Nov. 30 from Poole at the Penn Garrison Apartments, Downtown, and another $23,000 and a diamond bracelet recovered from his house on the same date.
Prosecutors also moved to forfeit property and cash seized that day from Mele at his residence in Downtown and from Horvath at his Forest Hills house.
The case was investigated by a task force administered by the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force program headed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.